Mississippi

On the move

The money-changers can stay, for now

FEW politicians acquitted themselves well in the immediate aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. One exception was Haley Barbour, the Republican governor of Mississippi. Having spent years as the head of the Republican National Committee and as an extremely influential lobbyist, he knew how to work with Washington. He was able to elicit federal money while avoiding federal interference, and unlike several other politicians, he did not dissolve into tears on national television.

Mr Barbour is up for re-election on November 6th and will probably win, although he has taken the precaution of going negative on his opponent. John Eaves says that he is a Democrat precisely because he is a Christian, which makes him a bit unusual among Democrats, not to mention southern white Christians. He wants Mississippi schoolchildren to spend the first ten minutes of each day in prayer and to have the option of taking classes in Bible literacy. He opposes abortion, gun control and gay marriage.

At the national level, many Democrats would balk at supporting a candidate with these views. But they hardly hurt Mr Eaves in Mississippi. And apart from putting Jesus back in everything, his interests are of a piece with those of the leading presidential candidates. He wants to help the poor, establish universal health care for children and fight lobbyists—or as he puts it, throw out the “money-changers”.

The language is loaded, but the last point is salient. Questions persist over whether Mr Barbour has truly separated himself from his old lobbying interests. For example, he used to lobby on behalf of tobacco companies. Mississippi has one of the lowest cigarette taxes in the country, and one of the highest sales taxes. Earlier this year the Mississippi House passed a popular bill that would have raised the former and lowered the latter. Mr Barbour opposed it, and it stalled in the Senate.

But saying that Mr Barbour is a “Washington lobbyist” is not necessarily a stinging rebuke. Voters came to terms with that fact the first time he ran. In fact, some Mississippians see it as a selling point: they think that Mr Barbour's connections give their state a seat at the table.

And he has helped bring thousands of new jobs to the state. On a recent afternoon the sun shone brightly on Blue Springs, a town in the state's north-east thick with scrub trees and kudzu vines. Steamrollers and backhoes have reshaped hundreds of acres there over the past six months. Frogs hid in the furrows left by their tyres. This is the future site of a new Toyota assembly plant that Mississippi won over bids from Tennessee and Arkansas. The state remains the nation's poorest, and unemployment, according to the Bureau of Labour Statistics, has actually increased slightly since Mr Barbour took office. But such development bodes well for its future, and for Mr Barbour's.